Sustainable Fuels

Unfortunately, most energy used globally today is still in the form of fuels of fossil origin that in their use lead to unsustainable and negative impact to people, environment and climate. To counter such negative impacts sustainable fuels are increasingly being introduced.

Fuels can, broadly speaking, be defined as materials that react to release heat that can be used for heating purposes, or for power to generate electricity or propel vehicles. Fuels range from solids (coal and wood) and liquids (oil, diesel, gasoline, HVO, alcohols) to gaseous fuels (methane, biogas and hydrogen), just to mention a few. Fuels are used in vast amounts today partly because of their ease of use, which is largely down to their high energy densities. In a future society solely using renewable energy sources, there is a continued need for fuels and their high energy densities, for example to buffer these renewable energy sources (ensuring robust supply of heat and power) and to power heavy transportation.

The UN defines sustainability as “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” To determine how sustainable any given fuel is, life cycle assessment (LCA) is used to provide the full picture from harvesting the original energy resource, over the processing, the distribution and ultimately the use of the fuel. Factors are land-use, energy needs in the chain, emissions, and several others.

The Department of Energy Sciences works with several types of fuels for different types of applications such as aviation, shipping, road transportation and power generation. Examples of such fuels are HVO, alcohols, e-gasoline, biogas, hydrogen and ammonia. Our research focus is to provide new insights into phenomena during the fuel use in engines, gas turbines and fuel cells, and how such energy converters can be further improved to use the new fuels more efficiently and without harmful emissions. Our ultimate goal is to facilitate and support the transition to sustainable energy solutions as fast as humanly possible.

The tools we are using range from experiments at our extensive laboratories in Lund and Ljungbyhed, to numerical simulations, system analysis and life cycle assessment. By combining our tools, we are able to answer a large range of questions of both fundamental physico-chemical nature, to the practical application of sustainable fuels in vehicles, airplanes and ships.

To make the most relevant impact and create the greatest value to our students, partners and society, we collaborate actively with other departments at Lund University, other universities nationally and internationally, the fuel producing companies, as well as the automotive, aviation and shipping companies.